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https://www.clawscustomboxes.com/9nmtrsaix Recently I wrote an article on the similarity between the Calvinist doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints and the Orthodox doctrine of the ability to lose one’s salvation. In either case, the emphasis is on the idea that a Christian is one who perseveres through to the end. In the case of a Calvinist, the argument is that God will ensure, through his Irresistible Grace, that those who are elected will actually either behave as elected or will repent in such a way that there will be a certain evidence of a persevering life. What an original T.U.L.I.P. Calvinist will not say or believe is that a person can be elect, but then live a life of irrefutable perdition.
https://solomedicalsupply.com/2024/08/07/1d9k53i59 After I wrote the article, I received a note from someone who commented that the term Perseverance of the Saints is slowly being changed to the idea of the Preservation of the Saints. I checked, and, sure enough, there is a discussion going on in American Calvinist circles over the wording of the doctrine. The argument is that preservation is a better term than perseverance. But, there is a major problem with that idea.
The original term, Perseverance of the Saints, was the argument that those who were elect would mostly behave as those who were indeed elect. The problem with the term, Preservation of the Saints, is that it removes any personal responsibility for saintly behavior. In fact, at its worst, the term Preservation of the Saints is an argument that God will preserve a saint regardless of his or her behavior. But, that is not in any way what was meant by the original doctrine. The point of the original doctrine was that a saint will behave like a saint. A person who is elected will behave like a person who is elected.
Xanax Rx Online No early Puritan, no Genevan Calvinist, would have argued that a person who is elected will behave–by and large–as anything other than a person who is elected. While there is a recognition that people can sin and fall away, yet there is a steadfast insistence that the majority of the elect will behave like the elect. The problem with the change in doctrine to that of the Preservation of the Saints is the willingness to adopt the American Evangelical idea that one’s salvation has no relationship to one’s behavior. The original Calvinist doctrine was that one who is elected will be irresistibly regenerated and will be changed to a behavior that is consonant to being elected. This neither contradicted free will nor militated against the idea that one could fall into a period of sin. But, it did mean that there is a relationship between election and behavior.
https://homeupgradespecialist.com/3oa8z40 The sad part of the modern American idea of salvation is that it most often has been divorced from any idea of holy behavior. Thus, one is saved after walking the “sawdust trail” regardless of what behavior may take place after one’s declaration of salvation. Back in 2005, Robert Jeffreys, an Evangelical pastor, commented, “There is little to no discernable lifestyle difference between Christians and non-Christians. I believe we’re using grace as a cover, as a license for sin.” In fear of either legalism or works-righteousness, all too many Christians have fallen into antinomianism and licentiousness. Yet, both the Orthodox and the Genevan Calvinists insisted that if one is saved, then one’s behavior will demonstrate a reasonable modicum of Christian behavior. That demonstration was not seen as legalism, but rather as a confirmation of the grace that was received in baptism. (Remember that the Genevan Calvinists were also sacramentalists.)
Sandoz Xanax Online We need to hold tight to the Orthodox / Calvinist conception. If one has turned one’s life over to Jesus Christ, then one’s behavior will demonstrate a certain consonance with what Our Lord calls us to do. If one is Orthodox, one speaks of synergy and the cooperation that catalyzes the outpouring of grace into a believer’s life and leads to appropriate behavior. If one is Calvinist, one speaks of the irresistible grace that brings about an inevitable overall change in behavior that demonstrates God’s election in one’s behavior. However one explains it, a Christian will behave like a Christian. The old saying of, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck,” is fully and completely true. We need to hold to that if we are to preserve Christianity as the Gospel that was preached by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
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